Teacher Blog

Recent Rojas Posts

Welcome parents. This is to be a place where I, Mr. Rojas, can post my thoughts as a teacher and parent. Hopefully it's of help to you and will get you thinking about our kids and what we can do to best help them.

Recommended Book: Battle Hymn of the Tiger MomThough I do highly recommend the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom (by Amy Chua) to parents, do know that I do not personally recommend this very extreme style ...
Posted Jul 24, 2012, 2:24 PM by teacherrojas

Though I do highly recommend the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom (by Amy Chua) to parents, do know that I do not personally recommend this very extreme style of parenting (that is not the purpose of motivating you to read this book). That being said, I do find this book to be insightful in a number of areas and an overall thought-provoking read, besides being entertaining in many ways. There is much to learn from this book, whether or not you embrace all, some or even none of what it says.

I strongly believe that as parents we do need to regularly reflect on the choices we make when it comes to parenting. Often times we do things as parents because that was how it was done by our parents (even at times, without questioning its legitimacy or effectiveness). It's just what comes natural to us. Sometimes we make an intentional choice to do things a different way from our own parents, a better way... as we see it. Either way, we need to view what we do as parents in a more serious way as our choices will affect our children directly for years to come.

This book will certainly cause you to check your choices and will also challenge you to set yourself on a course that calls for higher expectations for yourself and for your children. It presents this style even while trying to give an honest portrayal of the difficulties in executing such parenting extremes. It will even call you to do so through the sacrifice of your time, money and energy, all for a greater good - your child's future.

Read it and share with me what you think. Read it and then analyze your own choices to understand your ultimate motives for doing it your own way. In the end, you may even make one or more key changes that will be of great benefit to your child/children for years to come.

Here is an excerpt from the book that was printed as an article in the Wall Street Journal on Jan 8, 2011, prior to the book being published: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

Often I am asked by parents how they can best prepare their children for the upcoming grade. As a teacher, I can always list many things, so the question I give back is, "Do you want an extensive list or a basic one?" For now I will answer the basic ones.

If you want your child to have a successful academic career, the most important areas, in my view, you can help in is to make sure your child:

is reading regularly - One reason reading is so important is it increases a child's vocabulary (reading is the best way to do so). In turn, increased vocabulary leads to increased reading comprehension. When a child understands what he/she is reading, it will increase retention and free up the child to ascend to higher levels of thinking in what he or she is learning. Another benefit from regular reading is that the child is constantly exposed to excellent writing. They get to hear great sentences and writing styles which will ultimately create a clear sense of what good writing sounds like. Eventually, this exposure will work itself unto the writing done by that reader. Background knowledge is another strong benefit of reading regularly. This exposure to new places, experiences, personalities, etc. achieved through reading allows students to enter into new learning with greater ease - what you learn in one book might just help you understand what is happening in another book because they share similarities. Therefore, because of strong reading habits, this child enters into the new learning with a greater advantage than those who do not have such reading habits. Listen to these quotes about reading from, "The Read Aloud Handbook":

"The more you read, the better you get at it; the better you get at it, the more you like it; the more you like it, the more you do it."

"The more you read, the more you know; and the more you know, the smarter you grow."

"Students who read the most also read the best, achieve the most, and stay in school the longest. Conversely, those who don't read much cannot get better at it."

has basic math facts mastery - By this I mean that a student knows not just his basic math facts (+ - x /) but has full mastery of them, demonstrated by high speed in recall and by total accuracy in its computation. Unfortunately, this is one of the most misunderstood skills of math by parents. Parents will often feel their child knows their basic facts so they don't need to work on them anymore, even despite having a teacher pressing the need for more practice. The truth is there are some kids in school today who do have that high level of mastery, but they are few in number. I can safely say the majority of students in any classroom would greatly benefit from regular practice to strengthen these. Then there are some kids who don't even come close to having a basic skill level on these. Unfortunately for this group of kids, without any heavy intervention, they will see their CST scores continue to plummet every year, especially starting from fifth grade on (if it hasn't yet happened). Why is this? The numbers get bigger and bigger each year (increased complexity) and now you can't just use your fingers to figure out the problem (i.e.: what is 13 x 69). Please understand that the ultimate goal is not just to know your basic math facts but to know them so well you can answer any such question with such speed and accuracy that it can be classified as automatic. Teachers call this level "automaticity" and most kids are far from it. When a child is at the level of automaticity, basic facts demand very little mental energy from a child. On the other hand, the lack of automaticity does the opposite - it consumes much mental energy and it slows down a student trying to complete a multi-step problem or word problem. The energy consumed in getting to the answer of a basic fact within a problem can easily cause a kid to loose track of the next step they needed to carry out in order to complete the problem accurately. When careless mistakes are made on a more consistent basis, the child begins to feel he is not able to learn the larger math skill taught (say, area of a triangle), when in reality the real problem is that weakness in basic facts skills. Full mastery of basic facts frees up a student to learn the 5th grade level skills that will be taught. Without these, you start with a major handicap. To remedy this problem and the problem of boredom that can set in when doing the tedious basic facts practice, I have created an excellent online resource just to help your child practice regularly (as in daily for 5-10 minutes - my recommendation) on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Please take advantage of it. Besides the various games and activities your child can do on her/his own, there are also a few "multi-player" basic fact games I loaded on my site that your child will enjoy, while competing with peers (or parents, or family members, or neighbors). Go to: www.rrojas.com/mathfacts to enjoy this wonderful resource that will give your child the skills he/she needs to move on to higher math.

develops strong study skills and study habits - Here's a fact: strong study skills/habits will be needed from 5th grade on through the rest of your child's educational life. The reality is most students come to 5th grade with poor study skills. From now on, these newer skills increase in demand, especially for the subjects of science and social studies (though every subject matter demands it). Kids who don't develop good study skills begin to see plummeting grades. As part of study skills, students need to learn to discern the main ideas from what they are reading, to package the key information they need to retain in "brain-easy" ways, and how to take that information in for long-term retention. That is where I come in. As your child's teacher, I will teach and model great study skills. Your home support with accountability and review help will go a long way toward developing these key habits in your child.